Part 1

Post Mortem

Post Mortem Essays, Historical and Medical

C. MacLaurin M.B.C.M., F.R.C.S.E., LL.D.

_Lecturer in Clinical Surgery University of Sydney, etc._

New York: George H. Doran Company

_Made and Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_

Preface

Whether the “great man” has had any real influence on the world, or whether history is merely a matter of ideas and tendencies among mankind, are still questions open to solution; but there is no doubt that great persons are still interesting; and it is the aim of this series of essays to throw such light upon them as is possible as regards their physical condition; and to consider how far their actions were influenced by their health. There are many remarkable people in history about whom we know too little to dogmatize, though we may strongly suspect that their mental and physical conditions were abnormal when they were driven to take actions which have passed into history; for instances, Mahomet and St. Paul. Such I have purposely omitted. But there were far more whose actions were clearly the result of their state of health; and some of these who happen to have been leaders at critical epochs I have ventured to study from the point of view of a doctor. This point of view appears to have been strangely neglected by historians and others. If the background against which it shows its heroes and heroines should appear unsentimental and harsh, at least it appears to medical opinion as probably true; and it is our duty to seek Truth. If it appears to assume an iconoclastic attitude towards many ideals I am sorry, and can only wish that the patina cast upon their characters were more sentimental and beautiful.

Jeanne d’Arc and the Emperor Charles V were undoubtedly heroic figures who have been almost worshipped by many millions of people; yet undoubtedly they were human and subject to the unhappy frailties of other people. This in no way detracts from their renown. I must apologize for treating Don Quixote as a real person; he was quite as much a living individual as anyone in history. Through his glamour we can get a real glimpse of the character of Cervantes.

In Australia we have no access to the original sources of European history; we must rely upon the “printed word” as it appears in standard monographs and essays.

I owe many thanks to Miss Kibble, of the research department of the Sydney Public Library, without whose help this work could never have been undertaken.

SYDNEY, 1922.

Contents

PAGE

THE CASE OF ANNE BOLEYN 13

THE PROBLEM OF JEANNE D’ARC 34

THE EMPRESS THEODORA 65

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V 88

DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, CERVANTES, AND DON QUIXOTE 114

PHILIP II; AND THE ARTERIO-SCLEROSIS OF STATESMEN 144

MR. AND MRS. PEPYS 157

EDWARD GIBBON 180

JEAN PAUL MARAT 191

NAPOLEON I 204

BENVENUTO CELLINI 226

DEATH 232

Illustrations

The Emperor Charles V _Frontispiece_

Mary Tudor _Face p._ 16

The Empress Theodora ” 72

Perseus and the Gorgon’s Head ” 228

The Case of Anne Boleyn

There is something Greek, something akin to Œdipus and Thyestes, in the tragedy of Anne Boleyn. It is difficult to believe, as we read it, that we are viewing the actions of real people subject to passions violent indeed yet common to those of mankind, and not the creatures of a nightmare. Yet I believe that the conduct of the three protagonists, Henry, Catherine, and Anne, can all be explained if we appreciate the facts and interpret them with the aid of a little medical knowledge and insight. Let us search for this explanation. Needless to say we shall not get it in the strongly Bowdlerized sketches that most of us have learnt at school; it is a pity that such rubbish should be taught, because this period is one of the most important in English history; the actors played vital parts; and upon the drama that they played has depended the history of England ever since.

In considering an historical drama one has to remember the curtain of gauze which Time has drawn before us, and to allow for its colour and density. In the case of Henry VIII and his time, though the actual materials are enormous, yet everything has to be viewed through an _odium theologicum_ that is unparalleled since the days of Theodora. In the eyes of the Catholics, Henry was, if not the actual devil incarnate, at all events the next thing; and their opinion has survived among many people who ought to know better to the present day. Decidedly we must make a great deal of allowance.

Henry succeeded to the throne, nineteen years of age, handsome, rather free-living, full of _joie-de-vivre_, charming, and with every promise of greatness and happiness. He died at fifty-five, unhappy, worn down with illness, at enmity with his people, with the Church, and with the world in general, leaving a memory in the popular mind of a murderous concupiscence that has become a byword. About the time that he was a young man, syphilis, which is supposed to have been introduced by Columbus’ men, ran like a whirlwind through Europe. Hardly anyone seems to have escaped, and it was said that even the Pope upon the throne of St. Peter went the way of most other people, though it is possible that this accusation was as unreliable as many other accusations against the popes. Be that as it may, the foundations were then laid for that syphilization which has transformed the disease into its present mildness. It is impossible to doubt that Henry contracted it in his youth[1]; the evidence will become clear to any doctor as we proceed.

The first act of his reign was to marry for political reasons Catherine of Aragon, who was the widow of his elder brother Arthur. She was daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and, though far from beautiful, proved herself to possess a great and noble soul and a courage of well-tempered steel. The English people took her to their hearts, and when unmerited misfortune fell upon her never lost the love they had felt for her when she was a happy young woman. Though she was six years older than Henry, the two lived happily together for many years. Seven months after marriage Catherine was delivered of a daughter, still-born. Eight months later she had a son, who lived three days. Two years later she had a still-born son. Nine months later she had a son, who died in early infancy, and eighteen months afterwards the infant was born who was to live to be Queen Mary. Henry was intensely disappointed, and for the first time turned against his wife. It was all important to produce an heir to the throne, for it was thought that no woman could rule England. No woman had ever ruled England, save only Matilda, and her precedent was not alluring. So Henry longed desperately for a son; nevertheless as the little Mary grew up--a sickly child--he became passionately devoted to her. She grew up, as one can see from her well-known portrait, probably an hereditary syphilitic. For a time Henry had thought of divorcing Catherine, but his affection for Mary probably turned the scale in her mother’s favour. Catherine had several more miscarriages, and by the time she was forty-two ceased to menstruate; it became clear that she would have no more children and could never produce an heir to the throne.

During these years Henry’s morals had been no worse than those of any other prince in Europe; certainly better than Louis XIV and XV, who were to come after him, or Charles II. He met Mary Boleyn, daughter of a rich London merchant, and made her his mistress. Later on he met Anne Boleyn, her sister, a girl of sixteen, and fell in love. We have a very good description of her, and several portraits. She was of medium stature, not handsome, with a long neck, wide mouth, bosom “not much raised,” eyes black and beautiful and a knowledge of how to use them. Her hair was long, and it appears that she used to wear it long and flowing in the house. It was not so very long since Joan of Arc had been burnt largely because she went about without a wimple, and Mistress Anne’s conduct with regard to her hair was probably worse in those days than for a girl to be seen smoking cigarettes when driving a motor-car to-day. At any rate, she acquired demerit by it, and everybody was on the look-out for more serious false steps. The truth seems to be--so far as one can ascertain truth from reports which, even if unprejudiced, came from people who knew nothing about a woman’s heart--that she was a bold and ambitious girl who laid herself out to capture Henry, and succeeded. Mary Boleyn was thrust aside, and Henry paid violent court in his own enormous and impassioned way to Anne. We have some of his love letters; there can be no doubt of his sincerity, or that his love for Anne was, while it lasted, the great passion of his life. Had she behaved herself she might have retained that love. She repulsed him for several years, and we can see the idea of divorce gradually growing in his mind. He appealed to Pope Clement VII to help him. Catherine defended herself bravely, and stirred Europe in her cause. The Pope hesitated, crushed between the hammer and the anvil, between Henry and the Emperor Charles V. Henry discovered that his marriage with Catherine had come within the prohibited degrees, and that she had never been his wife at all. It was a matter of doubt then--and I believe still is--whether the Pope’s dispensation could acquit them of mortal sin. Apparently even his Holiness’ influence would not have been sufficient to counterbalance the crime of marrying his deceased brother’s widow; nevertheless it was rather remarkable that, if Henry were really such a stickler for the forms of canon law as he now wished to make out, he never troubled to raise the question until after he had fallen in love with some one else. He definitely promised Anne that he would divorce Catherine, marry Anne, and make her Queen of England. Secure in his promise, Anne yielded to her lover, seeing radiant visions of glory before her. How foolish would any girl be who let slip the chance--nay, the certainty--of being the Queen! Yet she was to discover that even queens can be bitterly unhappy. Anne sprang joyfully into the unknown, as many a girl has done before her and since, trusting to her power to charm her lover; and became pregnant. Meanwhile the struggle for the divorce proceeded, the Pope swaying this way and that, and Catherine defending her honour and her throne with splendid courage. The nurses and astrologers declared that the fœtus was a son, and the lovers, mad with joy, were married in secret, divorce or no divorce. The obliging Archbishop Cranmer pronounced that the marriage with Catherine was null and void, as the Pope would not do so.

The time came for Anne to fulfil her promise and provide an heir. King and queen anticipated the event in the wildest excitement. There had been several lovers’ quarrels, which had been made up in the usual manner; once Henry was heard to say passionately that he would rather beg his bread in the streets than desert her. Yet it is doubtful whether Anne Boleyn was ever anything more than an ambitious courtesan; it is doubtful whether she ever felt anything towards him but her natural wish to be queen. In due course her baby was born, and it was a girl--the girl who afterwards became Queen Elizabeth.

Henry’s disappointment was tragic, and for the first time Anne began to realize the terror of her position. She was detested by the people and the Court, who were emphatically on the side of the noble woman whom she had supplanted. She had estranged everybody by her vain-glory and arrogance in the hour of her triumph; and it began to be whispered that even if her own marriage were legal while Catherine was still alive, yet it was illegal by the canon law, for Mary Boleyn, her sister, had been Henry’s wife in all but name. Canonically speaking, Henry had done no better by marrying her than by marrying Catherine. A horrible story went around that he had been familiar with her mother first, and that Anne was his own daughter, and moreover that he knew it. I think we can definitely and at once put this aside as an ecclesiastical lie; there is absolutely no evidence for it and it is impossible to conceive two persons more unlike than the little lively brunette and the great fresh-faced “bluff King Hal.” Moreover, Henry denied the story absolutely, and whatever else he was, he was a man who was never afraid to tell the truth. Most of the difficulties in understanding this complex period of our history disappear if we believe Henry’s own simple statements; but these suffer from the incredulity which Bismarck found three hundred years later when he told his rivals the plain unvarnished truth.

Let us anticipate events a little and narrate the death of Catherine, which took place in 1536, nearly three years after the birth of Elizabeth. The very brief and sketchy accounts which have survived give me the impression that she died of uræmia, but no definite opinion can be given. Henry, of course, lay under the immediate charge of having poisoned her, but I do not know that anybody believed it very seriously. So died this unhappy and well-beloved lady, to whom life meant little but a series of bitter misfortunes.

After Elizabeth was born the tragedy began to move with terrible impetus towards its climax. Henry developed an intractable ulcer on his thigh, which persisted till his death, and frequently caused him severe agony whenever the sinus closed. He became corpulent, the result of over-eating and over-drinking. He had been immensely worried for years over the affair of Catherine; as a result his blood-pressure seems to have risen, so that he was affected by frightful headaches, which often incapacitated him from work for days together. He gave up the athleticism which had distinguished his resplendent youth, aged rapidly, and became a harassed, violent, ill-tempered middle-aged man--not at all the sort of man to turn into a cuckold.

Yet this is precisely what Anne did. Less than a month after Elizabeth was born--while she was still in the puerperal state--she solicited Sir Henry Norreys, the most intimate friend of the King, to be her lover. A week later, on October 17th, 1533, he yielded. During the next couple of years Anne seems to have gone absolutely out of her senses, if the contemporary stories are true. She seems to have solicited several prominent men of the Court, and even to have stooped to one of the musicians; worst of all, it was said that she had committed incest with her brother, Lord Rocheford. Nor did she behave with the ordinary consideration for the feelings of others that might have brought her hosts of friends--remember, she was a queen!--should the time ever come when she should need them. It does not require any great amount of civility on the part of a queen to win friends. Arrogant and overbearing, she estranged everybody at Court; she acted like a beggar on horseback, and was left without a friend in the place. And she, who owed her husband such a world, behaved towards him with the same arrogance as she showed to others, and in addition jealousy both concerning other women whom she feared and concerning the King’s beloved daughter, Mary. She spoke to the Duke of Norfolk--her uncle on the mother’s side, and one of the greatest peers of the realm--“like a dog”; as he turned away he muttered that she was “une grande putaine.” The most polite interpretation of the French word is “strumpet.” When the Duke used such a word to his own niece, what sort of reputation must have been gathering about her?

She had two more miscarriages. After the second the King’s fury flamed out, and he told her plainly that he deeply regretted having married her. He must have indeed been sorry; he had abandoned a good woman for a bad; for her he had quarrelled with the Pope and with many of his subjects; whatever conscience he had must have been tormenting him: all these things for the sake of an heir, which seemed as hopelessly unprocurable as ever. Both the women seemed affected by some fate which condemned them to perpetual miscarriages; this fate, of course, was Henry’s own syphilis, even supposing that neither wife had contracted it independently. (It is much to Anne Boleyn’s credit or discredit, that to a syphilitic husband she bore a daughter so vigorous as Elizabeth, though Professor Chamberlin does not appear to think very highly of her health.)

Meanwhile all sorts of scandalous rumours were flying about; and finally a maid of honour, whose chastity had been impugned, told a Privy Councillor that no doubt she herself was no better than she should be, but that at any rate her Majesty Queen Anne was far worse. The Privy Councillor related this to Thomas Cromwell; he, the rumours being thus focussed, dared to tell the King. Henry changed colour, and ordered a secret inquiry to be held. At this inquiry the ladies of the bedchamber were strictly cross-examined, but nothing was allowed to happen for a few days, when a secret commission was appointed, consisting of the Chancellor, the judges, Thomas Cromwell, and other members of the Council. Sir William Brereton was first sent to the Tower, then the musician Smeaton. Next day there was a tournament at Greenwich, in the midst of which Henry suddenly rose and left the scene, taking Norreys with him. Anne was brought before the Commission next day, and committed to the Tower, where she found that Sir Francis Weston had preceded her. Lord Rocheford, her brother, joined her almost immediately on the charge of incest.

The Grand Juries of Kent and Middlesex returned true bills on the cases, and the Commission drew up an indictment, giving names, places, and dates for every alleged act. The four commoners were put on trial at Westminster Hall. Anne’s father, Lord Wiltshire, though he volunteered to sit, was excused attendance, since a verdict of guilty against the men would necessarily involve his daughter. One may read this either way, against or in favour of Anne. Either Wiltshire was enraged at her folly, and merely wished to end her disgrace; or it may be that he thought he would be able to sway the Court in her favour. Possibly he was afraid of the King and wished to show that he at least was on his royal side, however badly Anne may have behaved. In dealing with a harsh and tyrannical man like Henry VIII it is difficult to assess human motives, and one prefers to think that Wiltshire was trying to do his best for his daughter. Smeaton the musician confessed under torture; the other three protested their innocence, but were found guilty and were sentenced to death. Thomas Cromwell, in a letter, said that the evidence was so abominable that it could not be published. Evidently the Court of England had suddenly become squeamish.

Anne was next brought to trial before twenty-five peers of the realm, her uncle the Duke of Norfolk being in the chair. Probably, if the story just related were true, the Duke’s influence would not be exerted very strongly in her favour, and she was convicted and sentenced to be hanged or burnt at the King’s pleasure; her brother was tried separately and also convicted. It is said that her father and uncle concurred in the verdict; they may have been afraid of their own heads. On the other hand, it is possible that Anne was really guilty; unfortunately the evidence has perished. The five men were executed on Tower Hill in the presence of the woman, whose death was postponed from day to day. In the meantime Henry procured his divorce from her, while Anne, in a state of violent hysteria, continuously protested her innocence. On the night before her execution she said that the people would call her “Queen Anne sans tête,” laughing wildly as she spoke; if one pronounces these words in the French manner, without verbal accent, they form a sort of jingle, as who should say “ta-ta-ta-ta”; and this foolish jingle seems to have run in her head, as she kept repeating it all the evening; and she placed her fingers around her slender neck--almost her only beauty--saying that the executioner would have little trouble, as though it were a great joke. These things were put to the account of her light and frivolous nature, and have probably weighed heavily with posterity in attempting to judge her case; but it is clear that they were merely manifestations of hysteria. Joan of Arc, whose character was probably the direct antithesis of Anne Boleyn’s, laughed when she heard the news of her reprieve. Some people think she laughed ironically, as though a very simple peasant-girl could be ironical if she tried. Irony is a quality of the higher intelligence. But cannot a girl be allowed to laugh hysterically for joy? Or cannot Anne Boleyn be allowed to laugh hysterically for grief and terror without being called light and frivolous? So little did her contemporaries understand the human heart. A few years later came one Shakespeare, who could have told King Henry differently; and the extraordinary burgeoning forth of the English intellect in William Shakespeare is one of the most wonderful things in our history. Before the century had terminated in which Anne Boleyn had been considered light and frivolous because she had laughed in the shadow of the block, Shakespeare had plumbed the depths of human nature.

Anne was beheaded on May 19th, 1536, in the Tower, on a platform covered thickly with straw, in which lay hidden a broadsword. The headsman was a noted expert brought over specially from St. Omer, and he stood motionless among the gentlemen onlookers until the necessary preliminaries had been completed. Then, Anne kneeling in prayer and her back being turned towards him, he stole silently forward, seized the sword from its hiding-place, and severed her slender neck at a blow. As she had predicted, he had little trouble, and she never saw either her executioner or the sword that slew her.[2] Her body and severed head were bundled into a cask, and were buried within the precincts of the Tower; and Henry threw his cap into the air for joy. On the same day he obtained a special dispensation to marry Jane Seymour. He married her next day.